10. Leading Through COVID & Beyond w/ Geoffrey Hall MBA, MSW

In this episode, we discuss courage and humility as essential for leading through a pandemic and beyond in order to save lives and honor your staff. Geoffrey Hall MBA, MSW has more than 20 years’ experience in Healthcare Administration and earned his MBA in Management and Operations from Walden University, a Master of Social Work from East Carolina University, and a Bachelor of Social Work from Auburn University. Geoffrey joined the Cleveland Clinic Rehabilitation Hospital system in October, 2016 and currently serves as the Chief Executive Officer for the Cleveland Clinic Rehabilitation Hospital, Edwin Shaw located in Akron, Ohio. Prior to this position, Geoffrey served as the Administrator for the nationally ranked Rusk Rehabilitation as part of the NYU Langone Health system from 2009 – 2016.

 

Geoffrey Hall MBA, MSW on LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/in/geoffrey-hall-1988265a

 

Music Credit:

Jason Shaw from Audionautix.com

 

THE IMPERFECT SHOW NOTES

To help make this podcast more accessible to those who are hearing impaired or those who like to read rather than listen to podcasts, we’d love to offer polished show notes. However, Swift Healthcare is in its first year. 

What we can offer currently are these imperfect show notes. The transcription is far from perfect. But hopefully it’s close enough - even with the errors - to give those who aren’t able or inclined to learn from audio interviews a way to participate.  Please enjoy!

 

[00:00:00] Patrick Swift PhD, MBA, FACHE: [00:00:00] Welcome folks to the Swift healthcare video podcast.

[00:00:03] Thank you for joining. I am delighted with our guests that I have for you. I believe this is a very special treat and a dear colleague and friend of mine I've known for, for 10 plus years. And I want to welcome to the show. Geoffrey Hall, Geoffrey. Welcome to the show.

[00:00:18] Geoffrey Hall, MBA, MSW: [00:00:18] Thank you very much.

[00:00:19] Patrick Swift PhD, MBA, FACHE: [00:00:19] Hey, I'm glad you're here. And folks, let me read you a bio for Jeffrey, and I think you're gonna enjoy this.

[00:00:25] Jeffrey Hall has more than 20 years of experience in healthcare administration. Jeffrey obtained an MBA in management and operations from Walden university. A master of social work from East Carolina university and a bachelor of social work from Auburn university to hear the thread of heart in the work that he does.

[00:00:42]He joined the Cleveland clinic rehabilitation hospital system in October, 2016, and currently serves as the chief executive officer for the Cleveland clinic rehabilitation hospital, Edwin Shaw, located in Akron, Ohio. Go Ohio prior to this position, Jeffrey served as the administrator for the nationally ranked Rusk rehabilitation as part of the NYU Langone health system from 2009 to 2016.

[00:01:07]And, uh, as a dear personal friend of mine, . I have traveled the world with Jeff. We haven't gone to China. We've gone to Qingdao and long Joe in Beijing and, and touch many lives. And. Moved education, health, education, medical education forward, and Jeffrey with all my heart.

[00:01:24] Welcome to Swift video podcast. Okay.

[00:01:26] Geoffrey Hall, MBA, MSW: [00:01:26] Thank you, Patrick. That was quite the introduction.

[00:01:29] Patrick Swift PhD, MBA, FACHE: [00:01:29] Well, there's a lot of love there. Right, right, right, right.

[00:01:32] Geoffrey Hall, MBA, MSW: [00:01:32] Absolutely.

[00:01:33]Patrick Swift PhD, MBA, FACHE: [00:01:33] So our episode for today, we are looking at leading through COVID and beyond if I had a sound effect, I would. Tied in, right. They're leading through COVID and beyond . Let's talk about this.

[00:01:46]Geoffrey Hall, MBA, MSW: [00:01:46] I would start by saying that, , certainly 2020 was probably one of the most interesting and maybe personally the most challenging years as a healthcare executive that I can remember and, I think you have to look back to how this pandemic started in end of February, early parts of March, and just the uncertainty and the, the prevailing sense of, of dread and even fear.

[00:02:10] , I remember just the one-on-one conversations with my frontline caregivers, nurses, therapists, doctors, , as well as our, our leadership team. And there's just so much uncertainty and so much unknown as, as COVID really started to kind of spread across the world. And I know here in our Cleveland, , Ohio area, , in the,

[00:02:32] partnership with Cleveland clinic. the entire region was just preparing for this massive surge of patients that looked like it was going to, at that time overwhelm the local hospital system, there was not going to be enough beds. There was not going to be enough caregivers. the Cleveland. Clinic itself was, , Decommissioned their state-of-the-art health education building, which is their newest building on their main campus and started to build a thousand bed field hospital.

[00:02:58] The convention center here in Akron was being turned into a field hospital and, , my location, , being primarily a rehab location was told, , that we were going to become a surge site and, , You know, that was a change in scope and change of focus and change of service line for us. And, , that decision was communicated to me just after five o'clock on one day.

[00:03:20]And I was told I needed to put together an emergency plan over 24 hour period. So, you know, leaving work after what is normally a long day, , went home and worked on this plan, , till at least midnight and, By midnight, we had, I had pulled together almost a 50 page plan of how I was going to change my building, into a COVID hospital.

[00:03:43]And, , communicating with my medical director, communicating with my leadership team. and then the next day, , 24 hours passes and I was told to kind of stand down. We're not going to do that. , We're we're, we're not, this is just a model. Let's, let's think this through. And then about three days later, , I got another call back from regional leadership and said, , not only do we need to stand this up, but how fast can you stand this up?

[00:04:07]And from that moment, I think the clock started and I had about seven days to alter my building through construction, creating new patient and staff entrances and entire new workflow processes. And how was I going to create a closed and segregated COVID unit that would not mix with my other caregivers and my other rehab patients.

[00:04:31], and then that plan had to be scalable depending on the size of the surge. It was a really dynamic time because when we were still as, as a community, learning about COVID and what were the risk factors? And this is before, you know, some of the lockdowns occurred. Some of the mask requirements occurred long before there was a vaccine on the horizon.

[00:04:53]so there was a lot of uncertainty and I was very proud of my team because we, we did stand up a COVID unit. , , in that short period of time, we built walls. We've changed workflow processes. , and we went from a place of uncertainty and.

[00:05:08] Patrick Swift PhD, MBA, FACHE: [00:05:08] for safety, right?

[00:05:09] Geoffrey Hall, MBA, MSW: [00:05:09] Yeah, we built physical walls, , for safety as, as a way to, , you know, really create distinct care areas.

[00:05:16], and of course, PPE and, you know, moving everybody into and 95 masks and all of the, the requirements that we've all heard about. So we did that in just over seven days. And then we started to admit, , COVID positive patients. , and we were one of the first rehab hospitals, , within our company.

[00:05:36]certainly our region that started to admit COVID patients and COVID recovery patients. And that really, , Changed our model and it kind of brought back this crystal focus on total care of the patient. And one of the unique things that we did, and I actually took away as a, as a best practice, if you will, is we aligned our nursing and therapy schedules to two identical 12 hour shifts and we made.

[00:06:03]Patient assignments as a team. And what was really unique in that is you had nurses, helping patients, , do their physical therapy exercises and get stronger. And you had speech therapist helping with bedside commodes and, you know, the toileting needs of patients. And it was less about your discipline and more focus on what does this patient need to get better and get stronger.

[00:06:28] And as a result, , the outcomes of this unit was so impressive. We had zero acute or emergent send-outs. We had zero patient falls. We had a hundred percent of our patients discharged home. , the gold standard for most rehab hospitals is about three hours of therapy per day, , which is pretty intensive.

[00:06:50] And in the early weeks of this unit, some of our patients, because. , they turned that corner with COVID and suddenly started to rapidly improve after these long hospitalizations, they were getting four or five hours of therapy a day because the team, again, around, around this total care, , was just really focused on creating great patient outcomes.

[00:07:10]And, you know, there were so many unique heartfelt moments around this because my staff went from a place of fear and. We don't know anything about this. We're, we're scared, you know, how are we going to be protected and how we're going to be safe? And that unit was formed with a hundred percent volunteers, nurses, therapists, housekeepers, , case managers, everybody that went on that unit volunteered for that duty.

[00:07:34] Um, and we're really at the tip of the yeah.

[00:07:37] Patrick Swift PhD, MBA, FACHE: [00:07:37] I'm sorry if I may ask, how did you do that? I mean, there's some, there's, there's so much you shared right there. The, the, the preparation that then led to patients and that led to saving lives by building what you built, and then you, you use the word volunteers, that you gave folks the opportunity to serve on these units.

[00:07:54]So. How did you do that?

[00:07:57] Geoffrey Hall, MBA, MSW: [00:07:57] Yeah.

[00:07:57] Patrick Swift PhD, MBA, FACHE: [00:07:57] saying folks who's, who's willing to volunteer? What was that like for you? W where there's so much media coverage, , and putting on pedestals healthcare providers is. Heroes. And there's actually been some backlash on that saying we're we're, we're, we're not wearing capes.

[00:08:12] We're, we're real people and we're suffering and struggling too. And we're self-sacrificing so it's not just a BS invitation. There is, there is the, the depth of that offer to serve. And self-sacrifice. So how did you as a CEO lead the team and lead folks to contemplate, to serve on a unit like that?

[00:08:29]Geoffrey Hall, MBA, MSW: [00:08:29] So there's a, I'll give you a little bit of a funny story to that. And then I'll, I'll give you a more serious answer. So as I'm doing this, , emergency preparation over the seven day period, our local newspaper in the Akron area ran a story. Uh, listing all of the hospitals that were preparing for this search, and this was not yet public information.

[00:08:51], so I'm walking into the building, I think six 30 in the morning. And one of my night shift nurse AIDS who's ending her 12 hour overnight shift is walking out into the parking lot and stops me and says, Oh, I saw in the paper that, , our hospital is becoming a COVID hospital. And that is not how I wanted that information to roll out

[00:09:14] Patrick Swift PhD, MBA, FACHE: [00:09:14] how you want your photo roll out,

[00:09:17] Geoffrey Hall, MBA, MSW: [00:09:17] no, and, um,

[00:09:18] Patrick Swift PhD, MBA, FACHE: [00:09:18] although it's great. You've got to engage an employee. Number one, the employees reading the headlines and, and she sees the CEO. And instead of not talking, she walks up to you and shares with you. The so kudos on that , you know, we can control everything right.

[00:09:32]Geoffrey Hall, MBA, MSW: [00:09:32] It rolls out. So I walked into the building, I'm shaking my head and then call the, an emergency management team meeting, um, assembled , our medical director and medical staff. And then, , over the course of the next two hours, I walked them through this, this plan that I had put together in 24 hours.

[00:09:51] But more importantly than that, , When you're dealing with something that is moving as fast as COVID and creating as much change as COVID, , I'm going to give the simple answer of you have to go beyond an email. Like you can't just send out a memo. You can't just send out an email when you're talking about people with questions and fear, and then they start personalizing this to their family, and then the reasons why they would or would not volunteer for a unit assignment like this, You can't overstate the importance of that one-to-one conversation.

[00:10:21] And what we did was really powerful as my, medical staff combined with my nonclinical areas. So housekeeping, dietary office staff, , they didn't have their clinical knowledge to draw on. So we did in-services and every single day we do what we call what's. walking rounds where we're engaging our caregivers, we're asking them questions, but most importantly, we're taking that as a chance to listen, what are your concerns?

[00:10:49]And then after we listen, that's when we give support. And then after we give support, that's when we give education. So it's kind of the old saying of no one cares how much, you know, until they know how much you care. So I think these walking rounds where the formula for that, I think they. Reinforced to our caregivers who were being asked to do very difficult things, things that they had never done in healthcare before.

[00:11:13]first we're, we're going to listen to you so you can, you know, Push back on us and then we're gonna support you. And we're gonna reinforce that we really care about your safety and our patient's safety, and that we have the expertise to do this, and then we're gonna educate you about the right way to wear PPE and the buddy system to make sure we're wearing it appropriately.

[00:11:32]You know, the, those,

[00:11:34] Patrick Swift PhD, MBA, FACHE: [00:11:34] Tell us more about that

[00:11:36] Geoffrey Hall, MBA, MSW: [00:11:36] yeah. So, you know, . It is pure accountability that, , they're watching your back. You're watching their back because when you're having to put on and 95 mask, eye protection, gowns gloves, and you're caring for a highly infectious patient. the PPE is proven through science that it's going to keep you safe.

[00:11:55] We've been using it in healthcare for over a hundred years. That's why we wear gloves. That's why we wash our hands. But. When you're having to do this for every single patient that you're caring for having somebody to make sure that you've, you've tied your gown and it's snug, and that you've, , you're removing your gloves the right way.

[00:12:14] So using the buddy system and empowering our staff to be responsible for safety, , and connecting it back to, you know, that purpose. And I think. We're lucky in healthcare that most people come into healthcare because they want to help others. , but now you have to take it to a different level and COVID it really just reinforced because it was changing so fast in those early months, we would set out a protocol in the morning and by four o'clock in the afternoon, it had changed.

[00:12:45] And the confluence of, of so many different voices, both at a. National and federal level and then a local and regional level. it was things were changing so fast. I've never seen anything in my 20 years of healthcare where, you know, information had to be validated, implemented, and. Rapid cycle kickstart and to action, so quickly and every single day it was doing this.

[00:13:14] So we, we ended up starting, , where we have normal morning meetings. We were having huddles at first, started the day, mid day, end of day. And we were doing these check-in calls. Just so we could rapidly get the information out. but then you had to follow it up with those walking rounds and those one-to-one conversations.

[00:13:34] So, , you'll hear this a lot in my responses, but it's, it's focusing not only on the task, but it's really focusing on the people behind the task. , you know, I think, I think as leaders, we sometimes need to be reminded that we manage things. We lead people.

[00:13:51]Patrick Swift PhD, MBA, FACHE: [00:13:51] I was going to ask you, how did you change your leadership style in multiple directions? Both from regional pressure. Or direction you receive from your senior leadership as well as how you supported others. And that, that dovetails right into that, that topic of how you shifted your style. And I love your point it's it's worth you saying that again.

[00:14:13] I love that

[00:14:14] Geoffrey Hall, MBA, MSW: [00:14:14] Yeah. No. So I think as leaders, we need to be reminded that we manage things, but we lead people. And, you know, as we went through this, , my, I watched my own leadership style change quite a bit because, , I had to one, , consider my audience, , , of how I was writing and communicating and my verbal communications.

[00:14:38] And then going back to check, did you receive what I intended to say versus what you perceived? I said, and having the trust and the accountability and making myself really vulnerable.

[00:14:50] Patrick Swift PhD, MBA, FACHE: [00:14:50] Ooh, I want to talk about vulnerable pleasing. Let's let's include that in highlighter, vulnerability as leaders, how you manage that.

[00:14:57]Geoffrey Hall, MBA, MSW: [00:14:57] , I think, um, I think being an effective leader and today's world, you have to be able to be in touch with your emotions.

[00:15:08] And I'm going to actually say that you should be comfortable using your emotions, not losing your emotions. So no one wants to have the leader or boss that loses their temper and just like flies off the handle. And I say that and I mean that, but at the same time, , our patient's safety really matters.

[00:15:26] And if you got one person that's refusing to wear a mask or, , not washing their hands or not taking some of these precautions safely, it's okay to be disappointed. And to really connect it back to not just, this is a task that I'm expecting you to do, but here's the why behind it. And, , I think it's okay to be passionate about being the best and having the highest quality.

[00:15:54] I think it's okay to, want your patients to get better, not worse while they're in your care. I think it's. Okay to say I'm scared and I'm tired and I'm exhausted because when COVID started, I worked three months in a row without a day off. , and to say I'm really, you know, exhausted. and I'm, I'm, I want to step back, but for me to step back, I need you to step up.

[00:16:16]And I had some of those conversations with my leadership team, because we were. , convening these leadership huddles seven days a week to make sure we were on top of this. And you have to also pay attention . So when they start to get tired and they start to, you know, feel and express themes around being burned out and being exhausted or being scared, you need to give people permission.

[00:16:41] To cycle down and or say, I really need help. I'm exhausted. I'm going to take Saturday off. If you can help me cover this activity. , it all goes back to communication and how we support each other. and that's one of the things that I was really proud of personally, but also I just saw countless examples of how do we care for each other and.

[00:17:04] , using that emotion and passion and to create that connectivity. and just really having honest conversations, which means not just telling everybody you're doing a great job and that's important to say, but it's having the courage to say. We need to improve in this area and it's not personal.

[00:17:24] It's not, you need to improve. We need to improve. and we're in this together and here's what we really need to focus on right now. If we're gonna create these great outcomes and get our patients home, more importantly, how are we going to keep our staff safe and how are they going to be able to keep their families safe?

[00:17:42] So, , I, I don't know that there's a start and end to that, but this past year, There's so much more reflection on vulnerability and being authentic with people and using that authenticity to give real support, not just kind of, uh, , easy conversations. and the challenge with that, and it's really impacted our leadership style is COVID has kind of taken away all of those.

[00:18:08] Social norms of eating together and celebrating together and , how do we come together? Like even now our hospital meetings are all virtual zoom based. So even the ability to be in the same room and have conversations. So we've had to kind of shift to a more virtual world and more socially distance world

[00:18:30] yeah.

[00:18:30] Patrick Swift PhD, MBA, FACHE: [00:18:30] you all on that, uh, how you're, how you're driving cultural engagement, , and those quality conversations in light of what you just said, that there is such disconnection at the same time as to need for us to be connected.

[00:18:41]Geoffrey Hall, MBA, MSW: [00:18:41] no, I don't know that I have, , the complete formula figured out, but I think just as you would do in a regular meeting where you all come into a larger space or a conference room, when you're on a zoom call with. 10 plus people, you still have to make time for that. Pre-meeting post-meeting smalltalk, like really checking in with people.

[00:19:02]And that's something that I've started to do is I run meetings via zoom quite regularly. Now is at the beginning and end of the meeting, I'm going to ask a more thought provoking, more personalized question. And I'm going to give people some time to kind of respond. And then we interact with each other off of that, because you can get so focused on this is what we're talking about in this meeting, that those small interactions that validate us as human beings and connectivity and purpose.

[00:19:31] We miss that though, those water cooler conversations, those coffee pot conversations, the everybody kind of. Sidebar chatting before the meeting starts

[00:19:41]Patrick Swift PhD, MBA, FACHE: [00:19:41] I want to. Jump in on that one, because you remind me of one of our heroes and someone you and I both Revere, which is Steve Flannigan, Dr. Steve Flannigan, Steven Flannigan. And in a, in a meeting this was years ago. I mean, I had hair and, um, we were at NYU. We were in a big room with a lot of folks and Dr.

[00:20:01] Flannigan was speaking to the audience, the group, and he. At the end of the end of the staffing, he asked what questions do people had any explicitly sad. I'm going to count to myself to give you time. So think about what you want to ask, any, any, any was jokingly, but like one, two, it wasn't like, yeah, there we go.

[00:20:25] He count to eight. Like he'd let people know, not from like, we get to eight and I'm out of here, but I really want to give you time to answer. Or, and you just touched on zoom calls where you're asking a thoughtful question and that's demonstrating the heart of leadership. That is the, the lion heart of leadership where you're not afraid of what.

[00:20:45] Someone's going to say there's co-writes there's courage there. There's heart. So I appreciate your bringing up pausing and thanks for reminding me about Dr. Flanagan and his example to us

[00:20:54]Geoffrey Hall, MBA, MSW: [00:20:54] Now I learned so much from, from Dr. Flanagan. And I remember those pauses at the end of meetings, because whether people had something on their mind that they were ready to talk about or , they just needed that space. Um, And people want to fill that space. So you've got to build in and

[00:21:14] Patrick Swift PhD, MBA, FACHE: [00:21:14] space, right?

[00:21:15] Geoffrey Hall, MBA, MSW: [00:21:15] you've got to build in some time with your virtual meetings to let people be people.

[00:21:19] And I reminded of that every single day. The other thing I love about Dr. Flanagan's and she brought him up and I think it's a good reflection as a leader. Is finding ways to say yes and he just embodied that so much. And I try to bring that into my own style because it's easy for us to just say no of why something can't happen, but you start to open up all these possibilities when you start to think or give yourself permission to think or others to think what if we said yes.

[00:21:49] And I think that really created a lot of success, even with this COVID unit, , not finding wise. We can't because we're a rehab hospital and we don't do COVID, but instead

[00:22:00] Patrick Swift PhD, MBA, FACHE: [00:22:00] do things around here. Right? The perspective, how can I say yes.

[00:22:04] Geoffrey Hall, MBA, MSW: [00:22:04] yes. And then if we're going to say yes, how do we do it well

[00:22:08] Patrick Swift PhD, MBA, FACHE: [00:22:08] Hmm, right?

[00:22:09] Geoffrey Hall, MBA, MSW: [00:22:09] or better?

[00:22:10] Patrick Swift PhD, MBA, FACHE: [00:22:10] at the right time, at the right reason with the right goal and, and discerning that. Beautiful.

[00:22:16] Geoffrey Hall, MBA, MSW: [00:22:16] It's, it's completely empowering.

[00:22:18]Patrick Swift PhD, MBA, FACHE: [00:22:18] Hey, let's talk about one of the one concept you and I have touched on is responsibility to and responsibility for you. Threw that out there on another conversation we were having.

[00:22:29] And I want to ask you to, to, , unpack more of that because I like the direction that's hinting. It's going,

[00:22:35] Geoffrey Hall, MBA, MSW: [00:22:35] Yeah, so I use the, the. Difference between responsibility too and responsibility for, , as I'm training new leadership and new managers, because we sometimes think that. Mistakenly think that we're responsible for the actions and behaviors of other people when intellectually, we all individually know that that person is responsible.

[00:22:59]But when we, we have managers and leadership, we feel a certain amount of ownership and you own your quality. You, you own your team, you own the identity and reputation of, of your organization. And you feel like that's a reflection and. You know, I think we have to make that distinction. And if you're responsible to someone you're giving them feedback, you're being honest.

[00:23:25] You're giving them, , Opportunities and time to correct, and to learn from, , you're giving the training, you're giving the education and then it's up to that person to do something with that. And whereas if I'm responsible for something, then you, you. Sometimes go down the slippery slope of thinking that you're the only person that can do that.

[00:23:50] Or you're the only person that can make a decision or you're the only person that can create a successful outcome. And when you start to pull it back and feel like I have to do it myself, My honest opinion is I think we're starting to fail as leaders and that doesn't mean leaders. Aren't high-performing overachieving, get things done, kind of people, , but if you're going to trust and empower and build and be a people builder, then you have to be able to identify and have that hard talk with yourself sometimes.

[00:24:21] Am I being responsible to this person and giving them all the feedback and education training support to be successful. Where am I feeling responsible for this person? And there were times in this past year, thinking about the urgency of COVID in our hospital operations, I've felt a lot of responsibility for, and I.

[00:24:42]To not disempower or lose or disengage or burn out my team. I had to be able to pull myself back and say, I'm going to be responsible to this person. And I'm going to trust and empower this person to be an extension of my vision, of what I want to accomplish. And we accomplished a lot more together than I could have done by myself.

[00:25:01] So I just think it's, it's a really. Great topic. And I don't know that you ever completely resolved that balance cause it's a Seesaw. , where, , you do have to have some ownership and you do have to have some passion and you have to have high levels of engagement and follow through. But at the same time, if you're doing this with people in leadership, it's separating the responsible to versus the responsible for

[00:25:27]Patrick Swift PhD, MBA, FACHE: [00:25:27] I like to call that the yoga of healthcare, where we're we're as leaders, we're staying flexible at the same time to support, um, the good work that's being done. It's a beautiful way to, to, to, um, Put that together. Jeffrey also want to talk with you about the patient experience and challenges and lessons learned during the past COVID adventure and, , , your future vision of how you're advancing the patient experience.

[00:25:55] Geoffrey Hall, MBA, MSW: [00:25:55] That's a, that's a great question. I think it's evolving. , so in our hospital setting, we do a significant amount of family training where we involve, , Adult children, spouses, family members in the care of the patient, because our goal is to get those patients home. And you're moving from a setting where you have 24 hour nursing care and great therapy care to your home environment, which really doesn't have as much of the same supports and infrastructure. , as part of COVID, as we had to lock down and change our visitation processes, we really had to implement some new ways to continuously get our patients home, despite not having people onsite. And on-premise so. We implemented a lot of virtual FaceTime training, , where therapists and nurses working with a patient would have, , the family member on a video screen and interacting in the session.

[00:26:49], we converted all of our support groups, , for brain injured patients and spinal cord, injured patients and stroke patients to virtual. And , what the unintended benefit of that was is that. , we sometimes think that we start a group and it's just accessible to everyone, but not everyone has transportation or the availability to come to a, , a group setting or a hospital setting.

[00:27:14]So our participation and enrollment in some of these groups, nearly tripled because the virtual aspect gave more access to care and access to follow up. And. What was really powerful, particularly with our COVID support group was the peer support. It wasn't the healthcare professional, leading the discussion.

[00:27:35]It was everyone else talking about the long haul symptoms that they had, how that had impacted their family. Um, and Mo more importantly, , I think there was such a stigma around the, the patients who were early diagnosed with, with COVID. And it started to kind of normalize that. So we really went to a virtual strategy and certainly across healthcare, you're seeing an explosion of, tele-health, which has been around for years, but it's now becoming mainstream because it's creating a better access of care.

[00:28:09] If you think personally, why would you want to go to a crowded doctor's waiting room or an emergency room right now, if you could access the same doctor and actually have. A really personal conversation with that doctor about what's going on with you via your phone versus doing that. And I'm not saying healthcare should be all virtual because there from a patient experience, , one of the, because we had to do when we, we limited our visitors and had no visitors during the hall days, is we just task staff every day to say, You need to go do some social rounding.

[00:28:43] Like I want to, like, there's no task, there's no activity, there's no procedure. I just need you to go in and have a conversation with how this person is doing and keeping that human connection. you know, we brought in musicians and it was one of the best things I saw in 2020, where I had a opera singer and a violinist in a hallway.

[00:29:05] And because we had to be socially distance. Our patients came to their doorways of their patient rooms and sat in the doorways so that they were more than six feet apart. And in the center of the hall, I've got somebody playing a violin and an opera singer and lots of hospitals do those kinds of things on a regular basis, but doing it in a COVID

[00:29:24] Patrick Swift PhD, MBA, FACHE: [00:29:24] during COVID that's that's, that's unusual and it speaks to patient family centered care. And I love what you said earlier about it. Not just being a top-down , the clinician. Doing training to the family. But you said that the family are speaking up and part of the conversation during those, the peer to peer support, that's patient, family centered care where they, they, they have the voice, it's the collective it's us together, as opposed to a sense of separateness.

[00:29:54] Geoffrey Hall, MBA, MSW: [00:29:54] And I would say in healthcare settings, we often focus on our patients and you'll hear patient centered care. And that's been a buzzword for the industry for years, but I want to expand that because we had to go through this. And this was a hard learned lesson for us. Is when we first went through our COVID rollout and our changed our operations, we were really well focused on the staff experience and the staff education and the staff safety.

[00:30:21]And I actually had a patient in our hospital who was, , recovering from a spinal cord injury and was hospitalized before the COVID lockdown and then was with our hospital as we made all of these. Drastic changes with COVID precautions. And he came to me and he said, your staff are great. You know, they really know what they're doing.

[00:30:40], I really see that they, they feel like you've got this COVID thing under, under control, but my family is concerned. And so what can you do around that? So I sat with him for a couple of hours and he. Rattled off a number of questions. And then as a leadership team, we went back and we had to revisit every single one of those questions with the lens of how do we communicate this to not only this one patient, but patients going forward. So as a result of that, we came up with a new family communication plan and who is making the calls.

[00:31:13] And how often are we making the calls? And what's the content of this call and how are we. Passing this off and how are we just acknowledging that families are anxious because they can't see their loved ones right now. And all of this other stuff is happening in the world. , so let's kind of raise the bar on customer service and you know, some of that was FaceTime calls and, and our rec therapists did an amazing job of using FaceTime to do virtual visits.

[00:31:42], We did a virtual 70th wedding anniversary for one of our, our patients and their families. , cause the spouse was hospitalized. You know, we had to rethink of how do we help families celebrate birthdays and anniversaries. And I really want to stress that family communication. Cause it's real easy to go rounding and go talk to a patient and explain to the patient.

[00:32:04] But you've got to do that two or three times. If they've got a son and daughter that live out of state, a family member that lives in the local area, like sometimes you would learn that you're having all these update conversations with a family member, but they're not the decision-maker family members.

[00:32:21] So really trying to and not be defensive about that and say, Okay. You're not here. So we can't share this information in person. So what extra level can we go to, to make sure that your experience matches the same care that we're providing to the patient?

[00:32:38] Patrick Swift PhD, MBA, FACHE: [00:32:38] Outstanding. Standing

[00:32:39]One of the questions I love to ask, and I want to ask you, if you were standing at the top of the world and you had the attention of all the healthcare folks, physicians, nurses, therapists, staff, leadership, all the folks who work in healthcare for a brief moment what would you say to, to healthcare across the planet right now?

[00:33:01] Geoffrey Hall, MBA, MSW: [00:33:01] Well, I'll answer that with what I wish somebody had told me, and I've had to figure out and continuously remind myself of, and it's to focus on the people, providing the care. And it's my belief that if our caregivers feel supported and, , we're really developing them from a skill enhancement, but just focusing on empathy and their overall experience.

[00:33:26] Then it's not unreasonable to expect great patient experience and great outcomes, but we have to focus on the caregivers. I think oftentimes we bury people with tasks and audits and activities, and we need to remember that there's a person that's behind that. And, , I think I want us to become more, , accountable for.

[00:33:51] Development and resilience versus a burnout culture. , because that was one of the key things that I was reminded of this year was we had our third wave of COVID surge across our community. , and I started to see at one point our local area was that a 33% positivity rate and. There was no backups.

[00:34:14] There was no additional nurses or nurse AIDS or therapist on the bench that could come in and take care of our patients. , so it was mission critical that we tried to keep our own staff safe. and just managing that because even one person calling out was the difference between a good shift and a bad shift, a good day and a bad day.

[00:34:37] So. For me, I wish somebody had even earlier had reminded me to just focus on the caregivers. And if you do that, the caregivers will remember and take, take great care of the patients.

[00:34:50] Patrick Swift PhD, MBA, FACHE: [00:34:50] you're here , and that is global thought leadership in healthcare. Right there to a T when I ask you if folks who are interested in following up with you or had a question, uh, , how could they, uh, get in touch with you?

[00:35:02] Geoffrey Hall, MBA, MSW: [00:35:02] Sure, absolutely. And thanks for the time Patrick. I always enjoy our conversations. the best way to reach me would be, , my email address. And, um, would you like personally?

[00:35:11]Patrick Swift PhD, MBA, FACHE: [00:35:11] uh, well, I'm not gonna put that on the show, but how about, how about your LinkedIn profile? If, if folks are interested in connecting with you on LinkedIn,

[00:35:18] Geoffrey Hall, MBA, MSW: [00:35:18] yeah, I'm not on other social media channels, but you can certainly find me on LinkedIn.  , , , but I am the kind of CEO that gives my personal cell phone number out to my patients, their families, my staff. , cause I don't know if you can care about people and just have a start and stop time.

[00:35:34]Patrick Swift PhD, MBA, FACHE: [00:35:34] beautifully said beautiful leadership, beautiful perspective. . Jeffrey, thank you so much for, for being on the show. Thank you for being on the Swift video podcast with healthcare video podcast and, uh, folks, , , I hope that you, , take away nuggets from what Jeffrey had to share and, , , Jeffrey, thank you so much for being on the show.

[00:35:51]Geoffrey Hall, MBA, MSW: [00:35:51] thank you, Patrick.

[00:35:52]